


Chance Encounter

by Zetal (Rodinia)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU after Season 5, Cas Has a Temper, M/M, Tim and Reggie are Kind of Jerks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 18:29:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6340504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodinia/pseuds/Zetal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Apocalypse is over, Sam's out of Hell, and Team Free Will is enjoying the chance to kick back and relax.  A chance encounter with some old friends digs up old memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chance Encounter

“Dean? Dean Winchester, is that you?”

Dean looked up at the sound of the voice, immediate wariness replaced by a warm grin when he recognized the speaker. “Reggie! Haven’t seen you in years, man. What are you doing here?”

“Just passing through,” Reggie said, taking the hand Dean held out and clapping Dean on the shoulder with his other hand. “Tim saw the Impala and said we should pull off to say hey.”

“Well, hey,” Dean said. “Where’s Tim and Steve?”

Reggie’s grin faded a little. “You didn’t hear? Steve got taken out by a demon last year. Tim’s…”

“Right here,” Tim said from behind Steve as he walked up. “Just getting’ drinks. You get through the Apocalypse okay? Musta been real tough on you.”

“Yeah, it sucked pretty damn hard,” Dean said, sitting back down at the table and motioning for Tim and Reggie to pull up chairs. “But if you haven’t heard, it’s over now, thanks to us.”

Castiel returned from the bar with his own drink and one for Dean. “These are not the kind of people I usually find joining us,” he commented as he took his seat.

“Cas, this is Tim, and that’s Reggie. They’re old friends of Dad’s,” Dean said. “Their pal Steve gave me my first lesson in hustling pool, musta been twenty years ago. Guys, this is Cas. He’s a buddy of mine, helped out a lot over the last couple years.”

“Hey,” Reggie said, giving Cas a friendly nod. “Shame he couldn’t do something about Freakazoid the Antichrist, huh?”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Cas said, and Dean smothered the chuckle. “Sam was able to convince the Antichrist to hide, and I know nothing of any Freakazoid.”

Dean shook his head. “Shoulda gone with Sam’s instinct on that one from the beginning. I was such an idiot then. If anyone knew how to handle that situation, it was Sammy.”

Tim looked at Dean like he’d grown a second head. “You do know what Sam did, don’t you? Sam’s gut isn’t something I would trust if I needed some fruit digested.”

Dean wasn’t quick enough to stop Cas from standing up for Sam. Or literally standing up. “Do you refer to Sam killing Famine, the Horseman? Or perhaps you mean overpowering Lucifer himself to end the Apocalypse? Sam has done many things. You should be more specific.”

Dean reached for Cas’s arm. “Cas, calm down. They’re friends.”

“Sam started the goddamn Apocalypse!” Reggie hissed, voice just above a whisper.

Cas wasn’t calming. Even a little. “And then he ended it.”

“He drank demon blood,” Tim said.

Now Dean was on his feet too. “How the hell do you know about that?”

“The demon who got Steve told us,” Tim said. “It’s Sam’s fault that Steve’s dead!”

“It is not,” Castiel said. Suddenly, he went calm, looking over Tim’s shoulder and smiling softly. “Hello, Sam.”

“Hey, Cas,” Sam said. “Tim. Reggie.” He didn’t seem particularly eager to come any closer.

“You’re traveling with him again?” Reggie asked incredulously. “I thought you’d had the sense to ditch him!”

“Ditch…” Dean was bewildered.

Sam let out a long breath. “They, uh, took a hunt in Oklahoma while I was there, dropped by to find out why I’d called Bobby instead of taking it myself. No big deal.” That explained it, Dean supposed. 

“Still in contact with that pretty waitress?” Tim asked. “Oh, what was her name… Laura? Linda?”

“Lindsey, and no, I haven’t seen her since that night. Pretty sure she has no interest in seeing me ever again,” Sam said, avoiding eye contact and staring at his drink.

Tim snorted. “Yeah, pretty sure finding out Keith Sam started the Apocalypse would cool anyone’s ardor.”

Dean shot an incredulous look over at Sam. “You told some random waitress?”

“I didn’t exactly have much of a choice,” Sam said, still avoiding eye contact. “And she wasn’t just some random. I worked with her and she kinda had a thing for me. Well, for Keith. Don’t think she thought much of Sam.”

“What do you mean you didn’t have much choice?” Dean asked.

“I mean she was being held hostage and they were gonna kill her if I didn’t confess my part in starting the Apocalypse. I’ve gotten enough people killed, I wasn’t gonna add her to the list,” Sam said, staring fixedly at the floor as though the floor would swallow him up and get him out of the conversation if he just wished hard enough.

“So you confessed, they let her go, and…” Dean prompted.

“And I don’t want to talk about it,” Sam said.

“Tough.” Dean crossed his arms. “I’m long over my not caring stage. I let this go, we get more Walts and Roys thinking it’s okay to shoot you because I’m not going to do anything!” He paused and let his arms drop. “I still owe those two a serious beatdown, come to think of it.”

“Me too,” Cas said as he stepped around Tim and Reggie. “Sam, please, what happened?” He reached out and laid a hand on Sam’s arm.

Sam looked up, meeting Castiel’s eyes for a brief moment before staring even more intently at the floor. “They tried to make me drink demon blood. I spat it out, got as much as I could out of my mouth, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t get it all.”

Castiel tried to catch Sam’s eyes. “Sam, that’s not your fault. You tried, right? Tried to fight, to resist?”

“Of course,” Sam said without looking up.

An ugly thought occurred to Dean. Sam hadn’t ever said, but feeding Sam demon blood… “Wait a minute. Why’d they try to make you drink?” Tim and Reggie hadn’t looked comfortable since Sam had arrived, but now their faces were identical masks of pants-shitting terror. “These two?” Dean dropped a heavy hand on each of their shoulders.

Sam looked up now, giving Dean the puppy dog eyes. “Dean, the demons had just killed Steve, and they blamed me because I should have taken the hunt. Admittedly not then, but you’d go after whoever you blamed for getting me killed any way you could, too. Or Cas, or Bobby. We still owe Meg for Ellen and Jo.”

Of course. Leave it to Sam to make excuses for the guys who had forced him to live through a nightmare and try to get Dean to leave them alive. Well, maybe Tim and Reggie would be reasonable. “Guys, what do you have to say to Sam?”

“Go screw yourself,” Reggie spat. “He got Steve killed.”

“Just because you two are in love with Satan’s pet doesn’t mean we have to…”

“Wrong answer,” Castiel said, interrupting Tim and getting in his face. “Being in love with Sam has absolutely nothing to do with recognizing that Sam has done far more good of his own choice than the mistakes he was manipulated into by Heaven and Hell.”

“Uh, Cas?” Dean said, trying to stop the angel from giving Tim and Reggie the wrong idea.

It didn’t work. Castiel didn’t even pause. “Yes. Sam started the Apocalypse. I helped. A demon helped. Sam was guided and manipulated from infancy by two of the most powerful forces in creation. But he never became wholly irredeemable, and under Lucifer’s threats, he never broke. He never once said ‘I screwed up, the world’s gone to hell, I give up.’ And when given the chance to truly right his mistakes, he took it, diving into Hell to trap Michael and Lucifer there and end the Apocalypse with no hope of rescue or reward. Would you, either of you, have done it?”

There was silence for a moment. Sam broke it. “Cas, it’s okay, I don’t care what they think of me.”

Reggie looked a little shaken. “Sam… how much of what this guy says is true?”

“I’m an angel. I am a terrible liar,” Castiel said.

Sam chuckled. “All of it, including that last statement. Except for accidentally implying that he’s in love with me.”

“It was neither accidental nor a lie, Sam,” Castiel said.

Dean recovered first. He spun the two older hunters around to face him. “Cas ain’t lying. He gathered and led the expedition that got Sam and Michael’s host Adam out of the Cage. And whoever you spread your poison about Sam being Dark Side to, I suggest you make sure they hear this part, too. Sam’s not a freak, not a monster. He saved the world. More importantly, he’s my brother, I’m proud of him, and anyone who wants to start something with Sam will find themselves dealing with me – if they’re lucky. If they’re not, they’ll get to take it up with a pissed-off angel soldier. Got it?” Both men managed something that indicated some sort of affirmative response, and Dean let them go. They both got the hell out of the bar.

By then, Sam had found his voice. “Cas? You…”

“Shouldn’t have told you like this, I know. I’m sorry. I hadn’t intended to tell you at all,” Castiel said. “How did they know, do you think? Did you, Dean?”

“No, you caught me by surprise there, and until you said otherwise I thought you didn’t realize what you were implying and didn’t mean it like that,” Dean said. “They didn’t know either, they were being jackasses. You’ll notice they accused me of being in love with Sam too.”

“Well, in your case, I assumed they referred to your bond as brothers and soulmates,” Castiel said. “How was that supposed to be rude?”

“Well, first off, there’s the gay factor,” Dean said. “Which apparently doesn’t actually bother you, but some guys, that’s the worst possible thing you can accuse them of. And then there’s just the awkwardness of accusing an angel of being in love with someone they think of as irredeemably evil.”

“Well, they’re wrong about Sam, so I see no reason why I should have taken it as an insult to be accused of loving him,” Castiel said.

“If you’re not ashamed or disturbed or whatever by it, why weren’t you gonna tell me?” Sam asked.

“I didn’t want to make things awkward. Yes, I am aware that it’s happened anyway.”

Sam grinned. “I don’t see why it has to. Dean? You gonna have a problem with this?”

Dean shook his head. “Only if you forget the rules.”

“Sam?” Cas looked back and forth between the brothers. “What rules are you not forgetting?”

“The rules of making sure Dean doesn’t have to see things he doesn’t want to just because I have a boyfriend.”

“You have a boyfriend?” Cas asked, looking rather startled. “Who?”

“I don’t have one yet, but I just found out that this guy I’ve liked for months is in love with me, so I think I have pretty good reason to be optimistic about having one soon,” Sam said, and Dean couldn’t hold back the laugh. Sam reached out and caught Cas’s hand. “What do you say, Cas? Will you be my boyfriend?”

Cas looked over at Dean. “Did you know about this one?”

“Yeah, I beat it out of Sam a while back, not long after Van Nuys. Why?”

“If you knew about it, then it existed before today, which means I can believe in it,” Castiel said. “Though it is difficult.”

“Trust me, not more difficult than for me to believe you,” Sam said. “The things I’ve done… and you’re an angel…”

“Poor example of one,” Cas said, and Sam laughed. “So, if that’s what you want, then yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are awesome! Writers love them!


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